Age of Valor: Blood Purge

by D. E. Morris

  “I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't even get to see you at the castle before you left.”

  “It's okay,” Misuzu promised, smiling at her friend holding her child. “I know there was quite a lot going on. Tasarin filled me in. Oh!” She rushed to touch the corner of her eye, making both Ashlynn and Jaryn smirk, but Misuzu was hardly amused. “I promise you that if there is another shape shifter at Altaine, once this is all over with tonight, I'll help you sniff them out.”

  Jaryn gave her a weary smile of thanks. “I would greatly appreciate that.”

  “What's Cavalon's problem?” Rowan asked, running a hand over Nagisa's thin black hair.

  Misuzu crossed her arms and heaved a sigh. “I think he's a little in denial. He's been like this since Tasarin and I got here, although it seems he put on his extra bitter britches the second he saw you.” She looked at Ashlynn. “He won't ever say it, you know he won't...but he's scared.”

  “We all are,” Jaryn told her.

  Rowan snorted. “Big tough neanderthal men don't ever admit to it, though.”

  “I was wondering how long it would take for you to follow behind the others.” Nuala swept into the room and reached out as if to embrace Ashlynn, drawing up short when she saw Nagisa in her arms. “Whoops. I will kiss you in greeting, hug this young one, and then your handsome husband instead.” Cavalon came into the room as his wife was welcoming their friends, his demeanor a little calmer than before. When Rowan reached out a hand toward him, he grabbed it and pulled her to his side, tucking her under his arm. She wound her arms around his waist and squeezed him, resting comfortably against him like he was her favorite uncle.

  “So where do you want me to be?” he asked, his tone resigned.

  Ashlynn glanced at Nuala and the winged woman gave her a small nod. Clearly the couple must have had some sort of exchange before joining the rest of the group that had dampened his attitude. Whatever Nuala had said to her husband, Ashlynn was grateful for it. She needed Cavalon's support more than she needed his resistance. “Where do you want to be?” she asked him.

  He shook his head. “Honestly, I don't know. I keep going back and forth about it. I want to be with Lochlainn because he's going to be coming into a lot of power and at the youngest age I've ever seen a transfer go down. I'm a little worried about how his body is going to handle it, quite frankly.” He fixed Ashlynn with an apprehensive gaze. “But I also want to be with you because I feel like that's where I need to be.” He peered around the room. “I have a suspicion that we're all feeling the same way, though, so I think it's going to come down to you. You have to tell us who you want where and we need to respect that.” Wetting his lips, he ran a hand over his bald head. “I'm sorry for my attitude, I just don't like this. I don't like any of this at all.”

  “Neither do we, brother,” Jaryn told him. “We understand.”

  Ashlynn looked down at Nagisa as she squirmed in her arms, bringing her up close enough to place a kiss on her smooth cheek. “I have thought a great deal about this and I think it makes the most sense to surround Lochlainn with as much support as possible. He's going to be fighting fear on so many different levels, and I won't be here to comfort him. He will need as many of you here with him as there can be, which is why I only want Tasarin and Misuzu on the Isle with me.”

  Shocked by this revelation, Cavalon immediately lifted his eyes toward Jaryn, but he only squeezed Ashlynn's shoulder as though it was something he was expecting. The lowering of his brow and the way his expression darkened suggested it was not something he agreed with. He was supporting his wife and would not fight her, which made Cavalon stay his tongue on the matter as well. “If that's what you really want,” said the Badarian. “The elf has already been granted special permission to sail out there with Suule, so they've been preparing since they got here.”

  “The elf has a name,” Rowan reminded, amused.

  Cavalon gave half a smile. “I know he does, kid.”

  “You know Tasarin wasn't the one responsible in aiding in the first purge, right?” asked Misuzu. “He wasn't the one to help my grandfather.”

  “Doesn't matter. I've never much liked elves and I don't see that changing anytime soon, especially given all that's going on lately. Besides, they've never been too overly fond of me or my kind as it is.” He turned an inquisitive gaze on Ashlynn and Jaryn. “We heard you were going to have a mass hanging this afternoon. How did that go?”

  Jaryn grimaced. “Not well. In fact, it backfired on us rather quickly. One of the elvish prisoners escaped and tried to get an arrow off at Ashlynn. One of her ladies took the hit instead. It could have ended much worse but it certainly did not go as planned.”

  Nuala gave a delicate frown. “I must say that I was more than a little surprised to hear that you would be so willing to take the lives of so many people, especially when there were elves among them.”

  “I thought it was more than justified.” Rowan pulled her arms from around Cavalon so that she could stand at her full height, as though to remind everyone that she was there and that her opinion was not an opinion of a child but that of a young woman. “All of them admitted to their crimes by the simple fact that they denied nothing. You weren't there to hear the pride and the arrogance in the voice of this elf as he spoke or the way he spoke to Ashlynn and Jaryn. I didn't have to be able to see a single one of them to know that none of them was remorseful or regretful. They weren't repentant or hoping for a second chance so they could change their ways. If any of them got out, all they'd do is double their efforts to hunt down and kill as many dragons and Gaels as possible, to recruit more hunters along the way. Not only that, but if they had their way, they'd get rid of the Elementals, too. I know only six of them met the gallows before we had to go back to the castle, but I would have liked to see the bottom fall out from beneath those six more than anything I wish I could have seen in my life.”

  Cavalon put a hand on her arm. “Easy, Ro.”

  “I'm angry, and I've a right to be.”

  “You do,” Nuala agreed. “We are all angry, believe me, but in anger there can also be grace.”

  “Not in my anger,” the younger woman declared. “I think anyone who tries to harm a dragon or dragon-kin should be hanged, every last one of them. A war has begun, It started the moment the first dragon was killed in retaliation for what was done on Mirasean. The first time someone was left to bleed out in the hope of draining the Gael from them, war was declared, it's just been slowly building. Eventually it will come to a head, and when it does, there will be far more casualties than anyone wants to accept because you want to extend grace instead of doing something about it.”

  An uncomfortable silence fell on the room. All of the adults looked at one another before looking away. Eventually, Ashlynn handed Nagisa back to Misuzu and asked where the boys were, not wanting to linger in Rowan's accusations any longer or to put off what had to be done.

  “They are playing with some of the other children,” Nuala told her. “I have guards watching them. They are quite safe here.”

  “True as that may be,” Ashlynn said, “I want to get this transfer done and over with. I think it's time we call the boys in so that Misuzu and I can be on our way over to Tasarin before it gets much later.”

  The winged woman nodded. “Then let us go find them.”

  Away from the main thoroughfare of the capital, a small group of children was dispersed among the trees, hidden among the branches and behind tree trunks, and moss covered rocks and boulders on the ground. It was easy for Lochlainn to feel like he was free here, with no one following his every movement in armor that clunked and clanked with every step taken. Nuala's royal guards kept themselves hidden at all times, always present but never seen even by their charges. This allowed Lochlainn room to play with the others and feel more like a child than he did even at home. His laughter came much easier and his cheeks were beginning to ache from smiling so much, even though he was the only one who was not hiding at the
moment.

  “Forty-eight, forty-nine, fifty!” He uncovered his eyes and swept his shaggy hair from his face, letting his legs swing down over either side of the branch he was straddling as he peered about the forest. Lanterns were always lit given that the Volarim never kept regular schedules, casting enough light both in the treetops and down below for him to see. Before he'd gone out to play, Cavalon talked him through shifting just enough to call his wings forth, making him look like he could be another one of the Volar who lived there, though everyone knew none of them had dragon wings. He was clumsy at first, much as Cavalon was his first time using only his wings, running into houses and trees, but Lochlainn was a determined student and a fast learner, and soon picked up on how to fly in his partially shifted state. This made his game of hide and seek with his new friends much more fun.

  From his high perch, he couldn't see anyone at all and knew he would have to move if he wanted to find the others. Besides Lucien, there were two other Volar children in the game: a girl with the wings of a brown eagle and another girl with black speckled filmy wings. There were also two elvish children who had joined in the game, visitors to the capital from one of the nearby lesser kingdoms, a brother and a sister.

  Pulling his legs up to hook his feet on the branch behind him, Lochlainn leaned forward and carefully maneuvered into a crouched position. He fanned his wings out before jumping away from the tree, flapping madly to keep himself aloft as he looked left and right. Of the airborne hiders, Lucien would be the easiest to find simply because of his plumage. Thinking he saw a tuft of white behind a nearby tree, he flew toward his target but flapped a little too hard and lurched forward with too much strength, sending himself crashing into the tree. A giggle erupted from below as he backed away with a violent shake of his head. He saw the elvish sister covering her mouth, trying to keep herself from laughing. “I see you,” he groaned, rubbing his forehead.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, stepping into the light.

  Someone else laughed behind him, making him turn around in time to see Lucien ducking behind a tree. He zoomed after his friend without even answering the girl's question. “Found you!”

  “Maybe if you didn't smash into everything like a behemoth,” Lucien laughed, tumbling to the ground as the boys collided. They nearly fell on the elvish boy and it wasn't long after that before the last child was found. They'd been playing this game for long enough that everyone had been able to have a turn at being “it”. With the growing goose egg on Lochlainn's forehead, they all decided to play a game of dice on the forest floor for a change of pace. Each of them knew they were on borrowed time as it was; the sun had gone down long ago and most of them kept a regular sleep schedule. It was a wonder that no one had come to collect them yet so that the brother and sister could be put to bed.

  “I thought only the Volar were allowed in the capital,” Lochlainn admitted, watching Lucien and the elven girl try to find a flat enough rock for them to use as a tabletop.

  “They come here all the time,” Lucien told his friend. “She takes etiquette lessons with a tutor here.”

  A blush colored the girl's tanned skin as she swept her long dark hair behind her pointed ear. “Someday I will be a queen's lady so I have to have proper manners.”

  “I think one of my mother's ladies should have had a better etiquette teacher,” Lochlainn admitted. He sat down on a thick fallen branch and rubbed his head. “She says things that make my mother mad a lot.”

  “I found one!” shouted the speckle-winged Volar, pointing to a rock close by.

  As the others cleared it off, Lucien and the elven girl sat on either side of Lochlainn. Though the girl was a year or two older than he was, Lochlainn's height made him sit as tall as the elf, making him appear older than he was and Lucien the younger of the boys. She peered at the bruising on Lochlainn's forehead with a bit of a frown. “Maybe we should go back. Are you sure you feel all right?”

  “He's had worse,” Lucien promised, repeating a comment he'd heard Cavalon say many times before. “Come on, let's play!” The winged boy leaped to his feet and sped across the clearing to see how the game of dice was being set up. The other two were slower to rise, but followed at their own pace.

  “What brings you here?” she asked as they walked. “I have heard there has been much commotion in Siness lately and your accent is certainly not that of any Braemarish city I know of.”

  Lochlainn furrowed his brow, eyes widening as he turned to look at her. It was a sudden realization that neither she nor her brother knew who he was, and why should they? It wasn't as though he held any sort of importance to them. The Volarim only knew because he and his family visited so often, but this was his first time encountering other children here. It was somewhat thrilling. Joining the others, the two settled into the circled that had formed around the rock to watch the game that had just begun. Thinking about the question and what would impress his new friends, Lochlainn puffed out his chest. “I came here to visit Lucien, but I'm also here waiting for my mother to perform a blood purge so I can become an Elemental.”

  The game halted, a mixture of awed and confused expressions turning in his direction. Lucien frowned at his friend. “Are you supposed to be telling people that?”

  “No one told me not to.”

  Lucien shrugged, the answer sufficient.

  “What is an Elemental?” asked the girl's brother.

  “How do you become an Elemental?”

  “Is it going to hurt?”

  “Can I become one, too?”

  “Why is it called a blood purge?”

  Question after question came firing toward the boy, all of which he answered with as much information as possible. Sometimes Lucien would laugh at the question asked or even at the answer given and supply his own, but often he would simply jump in with his own understanding of the subject.

  “So, your mother has to...die?” The elven girl appeared as though she was on the edge of tears, glancing from Lochlainn to Lucien. “Does this not frighten either of you?”

  The boys looked at each other. “Well, she isn't really going to die,” Lucien impressed, seeing the worry creeping into Lochlainn's expression. “My father will be with her. He saved her life before and he'll do it again. She's like his sister. He won't let anything happen to her.”

  “Can we watch?” asked the youngest of the group.

  “No!” Lucien cried in disgust. He sat up a little taller. “I'm the only kid that gets to be there because I'm Lochlainn's best friend.”

  A voice rang out through the trees around them, high and female, and one Lochlainn recognized immediately as calling his name. He ambled to his feet and brushed his trousers off, his head tilting to listen. When the call came again, this time clearly to his left, he put his hands around his mouth and cried, “Mother!” Lucien stood up beside him and did the same with a grin. Soon, all of the children were doing it, and the calls of six different voices all calling her “mother” finally led Ashlynn to where the group waited.

  She was laughing as she came through the trees, seeing all of them standing there waiting for her to find them. “Thank you. My heart needed that.” Her eyes scanned the faces of the unfamiliar young ones before her as Lochlainn hurried to her side. “Come along, you silly rascals. I am not about to leave you all in the woods at this hour, hidden guards watching over you or not. It is late and not all of you are used to keeping such odd sleeping habits.” For the first time, she looked down at her son and scowled, taking his chin in her hand. “What is that on your head? Lucien?”

  “It wasn't me this time!”

  The other children laughed as they followed along. “I ran into a tree,” Lochlainn admitted with an embarrassed laugh.

  They soon met up with Nuala, who knew exactly where the others needed to be taken. Ashlynn and the two boys continued on to where the rest of their family was gathered and waiting while Nuala took the other children home. When they were all together once again, Lochlainn clu
ng to his mother's hand. She took a deep breath and sat down on a plush bench at the side of the room, pulling Lochlainn down beside her while Jaryn sat down on the other side of him.

  “It's time for Misuzu and me to go see Tasarin and Suule over at the Isle of Contest.”

  Lochlainn glanced at Misuzu standing off to the side of the room, his brows drawn together. “Right now?”

  “Yes, heartling. I'm ready.”

  “But...” He lifted his face, his chin quivering. “Mama, I'm scared.”

  Tears rushed to her eyes and she wrapped her arms around him. She pressed her lips into his hair, refusing to let herself cry and willing herself to be strong in the moment. “I know you're scared, sweet boy. I'm scared, too. We're all scared, but Papa's going to be right here with you every second.”

  As if questioning this, Lochlainn turned to look at Jaryn, who nodded. “I'm staying here with you, son. It's okay to be afraid, but you can be brave even in that fear. You are going to be surrounded by people who love you and won't let anything bad happen to you. We're going to keep you safe and that is a promise.”

  “We're all here for you,” Cavalon promised.

  Instead of this vow bringing comfort to the boy, it only quickened his breathing and made him turn in anxiety to his best friend before looking once more at Cavalon. “I thought you were going to be with my mother.”

  Cavalon shook his head. “She thinks it's best for me to be here with you, and I trust her on that.”

  Lochlainn's panicked eyes lifted to Ashlynn as she took his face in both of her hands. “It's all right,” she soothed. Misuzu crossed the room and crouched beside him as well placing a hand on his arm as Ashlynn continued to try to calm her son. “I will have Tasarin and Misuzu with me, and Suule will be there. Nothing is going to happen to me. Everything is going to be perfectly fine.”